Using Math to Understand the World.

Calculate your personal water footprint SB: @MsALambert

In our global economy, each consumer on average ‘eats’ as much as 5 000 litres of water every day (ranging from 1 500 to 10 000 litres per day, depending where you live and what you eat). Everything we use or consume has a water footprint, sometimes close to where we live but often in river basins far away, even in other countries. Each ingredient in a product may come from a different place. Take, for example a cookie, which might have wheat from Canada, sugar from Brazil, vanilla from Madagascar and eggs from the local farmer. This one cookie is consuming and polluting water from a number of river basins, in countries around the world.

Do you know how much water was used to grow your food and to produce your clothes and the things you buy? Use our personal calculator to find out.